There is a bias in neuroscience toward localizing and modularizing brain functions. Single cell recording, imaging studies, and the study of neurological deficits all feed into the Gallian view that different brain areas do different things and the things being done are confined to particular processing streams. At the same time, there is a growing sentiment that brains probably don’t work like that after all; it is better to conceive of them as fundamentally distributed units, multi‐tasking at every level. This (...) sentiment, however, is much less congenial to the tried‐and‐true experimental protocols available today and to theorizing about the brain in general. This essay examines the tension between current experimental methods and large-scale views of the brain. We argue that this disconnection between experiment and what really are guiding theoretical metaphors seriously impedes progress in neuroscience. (shrink)

There is a bias in neuroscience toward localizing and modularizing brain functions. Single cell recording, imaging studies, and the study of neurological deficits all feed into the Gallian view that different brain areas do different things and the things being done are confined to particular processing streams. At the same time, there is a growing sentiment that brains probably don’t work like that after all; it is better to conceive of them as fundamentally distributed units, multi‐tasking at every level. This (...) sentiment, however, is much less congenial to the tried‐and‐true experimental protocols available today and to theorizing about the brain in general. This essay examines the tension between current experimental methods and large-scale views of the brain. We argue that this disconnection between experiment and what really are guiding theoretical metaphors seriously impedes progress in neuroscience. (shrink)

This article examines how scientists move from physical measurementsto actual observation of single-cell recordings in the brain. We highlight how easy it is to change the fundamental nature of ourobservations using accepted methodological techniques for manipulatingraw data. Collecting single-cell data is thoroughly pragmatic. Weconclude that there is no deep or interesting difference betweenaccounting for observations by measurements and accounting forobservations by theories.

For those in the so‐called G‐7, G‐8, or G‐20, searching for the formula for economic takeoff, this is a book that deserves a reckoning. It explores the “role of culture,” which hitherto has had “no place in traditional economic explanations” of the history of industrial achievement. It is in the cultural and epistemological transformation of the eighteenth century that Margaret Jacob finds the foundation of industrial revolution. Jacob thereby dismisses the myth of the accidental genius or the inspired semiliterate backyard (...) tinkerer that has reinforced the notion that nothing can be done except by lives of singular initiative.By comparing the British most particularly with the Dutch and the French, Jacob argues it was precisely the utilitarian and egalitarian sentiments found in British scientific and philosophical societies that mattered most. Her theme is the much‐contested vision of the efficacy of natural knowledge and the assimilation of natural philosophy by the utilitarian world of the artisan and the entrepreneur. The advance of mechanical philosophy under Galileo and Descartes notwithstanding, it was during the English Revolution of the mid‐seventeenth century that natural philosophy was explicitly attached to a new social reformation and an inchoate democratic vision.Isaac Newton had nothing but derision for the vulgar “inferior horde of people” . Yet his disciples launched into careers as purveyors of his science in public lectures heavily weighted to mechanical explanation. Often viewed with suspicion elsewhere in Europe, in England such lecturers flourished. Even the engineer James Watt's French contact J. C. Perier, who desperately sought as many British secrets as possible, had initially learned his science from the lecturer abbé Nollet. An increasing awareness of the practical consequences of the new science was essential to the economic achievements of the late Enlightenment. This ultimately is a major thrust of Jacob's argument, for many early industrialists “were smarter than historians have allowed them to be” . Those who sought the new steam engines for their mines were perfectly well aware of the mechanical limitations and natural variables that might affect the success of their enterprise. Jacob is quite correct that “the Baconian vision lived on, eventually subsumed under the larger rubric of Newtonianism” . At the end of the century, the Napoleonic technocrat Jean‐Antoine Chaptal appears as representative of the case for applied science by promoting the Baconian unity of theory and practice.The most innovative part of Jacob's story is the attention she pays to the role of science in the attitudes of Midlands entrepreneurs like James Watt and Matthew Boulton. Both insisted on a scientific education for their sons, and Boulton recommended as much for the sons of foreign visitors to the Soho foundry. Both Watt and Boulton were particularly adept in the experimental laboratory, although they were also highly suspicious of the growing public technical interest and scientific curiosity that they feared might undermine their own patent monopoly. This suspicion grew out of their own deeper unease at the burgeoning democratic sympathies. Boulton and James Watt, senior, were extremely critical of radicalism—so we need not, therefore, draw any simple equation between industrial innovation and political reform. The currents of late eighteenth‐century Britain were far too complicated for that. Jacob, nonetheless, draws broad and interesting conclusions about the ways in which Continental cultural and political factors obstructed the spread of the very natural knowledge that gave the British such advantages. In her view, especially in this age of a “knowledge economy,” it might now do us well to remember the potential effects of “the widest dissemination of scientific knowledge” and “the democratization of learning” . In Jacob's version of the Industrial Revolution, the broadening and deepening of democracy followed the spread of natural learning beyond the uses of traditional elites. (shrink)

Conditional information can be equally asserted in the forms if p, then q (e.g., ?if I am ill, I will miss work tomorrow?) and q, if p (e.g., ?I will miss work tomorrow, if I am ill?). While this type of clause order manipulation has previously been found to have no influence on the ultimate conclusions participants draw from conditional rules, we used self-paced reading to examine how it affects the real time incremental processing of everyday conditional statements. Experiment 1 (...) revealed that clause order interacts with presuppositional congruency as readers hypothetically represent counterfactual statements. When if p, then q counterfactuals contained a presupposition that was incongruent with prior context, these statements took longer to read than when the presupposition was congruent, but for q, if p conditionals there was no such congruency effect. Experiment 2 revealed that reading times were influenced by the subjective probability of an indicative conditional regardless of clause order, with a penalty observed for low-probability statements relative to high-probability statements in both conditional clause orders. These data reveal a dissociation whereby clause order mediates the effect of suppositional congruency on reading times, but does not mediate the effect of subjective probability. (shrink)

Abstract Employing an extended case method ethnography (Burawoy 1998), the researcher joined five new members forming a spiritualist's group under the leadership of an experienced advocate. Over a period of eighteen months, the researcher attended all the group's activities and events. Data were collected to reflexively interrogate the process theory of conversion proposed by Lewis Rambo (1993). The data revealed conversion to be a multifaceted and dynamic process of cognitive change, mediated by structural, and contextual forces. The results provide a (...) reconceptualization of Rambo's theory, presenting a theoretical expansion of the model emphasizing its mechanisms of action. The paper details the composition of the “Interaction-Commitment” mechanism, operationalized within four submechanisms emanating from Rambo's roles, rituals, rhetoric, and relationships. This longitudinal study shows that most of the hard work toward conversion occurs before any formal interaction with a conversion advocate. Conversion operates most effectively under conditions of cognitive economy wherein the belief path follows a path of least cognitive expenditure. (shrink)

The liver was used widely in early studies of polarised transport but has been largely overlooked in recent years, mostly because of the development of epithelial cell lines which provide more tractable experimental systems. The majority of membrane proteins and lipids reach the hepatocyte apical membrane by transcytosis and it remains unclear whether there is a direct route for apical targeting, although the pathways present have yet to be fully characterised. The recent development of systems that allow hepatocyte transport processes (...) to be studied in culture and the observation that transcytosis can be significantly stimulated under physiological conditions suggest that hepatocytes have a role to play in future studies of polarised transport. This review discusses the known features of polarised membrane traffic in hepatocytes and contrasts them with the characteristics of vesicular transport in other epithelial cell types. (shrink)

To study how religiosity affects family business goals, we merge literatures on goal setting, temporal orientation, and family business to argue that family business goals can be distinguished into short-term and long-term orientations and propose that religiosity affects both orientations, but to varying degrees. Drawing on a sample of private U.S. family businesses and applying partial least squares structural equations modeling, we find tentative support that religiosity has a stronger positive effect on long-term goal orientation than on short-term goal orientation. (...) We discuss implications for theory development and future research involving religiosity and family business goals. (shrink)

To study how religiosity affects family business goals, we merge literatures on goal setting, temporal orientation, and family business to argue that family business goals can be distinguished into short-term and long-term orientations and propose that religiosity affects both orientations, but to varying degrees. Drawing on a sample of private U.S. family businesses and applying partial least squares structural equations modeling, we find tentative support that religiosity has a stronger positive effect on long-term goal orientation than on short-term goal orientation. (...) We discuss implications for theory development and future research involving religiosity and family business goals. (shrink)

Attentional bias towards threat can be demonstrated by enhanced processing of threat-related targets and/or greater interference when threat-related distractors are present. These effects are argued to reflect processing within the orienting and executive control networks of the brain respectively. This study investigated behavioural and electrophysiological correlates of early selective attention and top-down attentional control among females with high or low spider fear. Participants completed a novel flanker go/nogo task in which a central schematic flower or spider stimulus was flanked by (...) either congruent or incongruent distractors. Participants responded to green stimuli and withheld response to yellow stimuli. High fear participants demonstrated significantly shorter reaction times and greater P1 amplitude to spider targets, suggesting specific hypervigilance towards threat-relevant stimuli. In contrast to predictions, there was little evidence for behavioural interference effects or differences in N2 amplitude when distractor stimuli were threat-relevant. (shrink)

Once we accept anyone's postulates he becomes our professor and our god: for his foundations he will grab territory so ample and so easy that, if he so wishes, he will drag us up to the clouds. Montaigne During the last fifteen years, the community of philosophers interested in religion has evinced a waxing concern with the justificatory value of religious experiences for theism. Two parallel but largely discrete debates have appeared in the literature.

In this article I shall concern myself with the question ‘Is some type of justification required in order for belief in God to be rational?’ Many philosophers and theologians in the past would have responded affirmatively to this question. However, in our own day, there are those who maintain that natural theology in any form is not necessary. This is because of the rise of a different understanding of the nature of religious belief. Unlike what most people in the past (...) thought, religious belief is not in any sense arrived at or inferred on the basis of other known propositions. On the contrary, belief in God is taken to be as basic as a person's belief in the existence of himself, of the chair in which he is sitting, or the past. The old view that there must be a justification of religious belief, whether known or unknown, is held to be mistaken. One of the most outspoken advocates of this view is Alvin Plantinga. According to Plantinga the mature theist ought not to accept belief in God as a conclusion from other things he believes. Rather, he should accept it as basic, as a part of the bedrock of his noetic structure. ‘The mature theist commits himself to belief in God; this means that he accepts belief in God as basic.’. (shrink)

Counterfactual thinking involves imagining hypothetical alternatives to reality. Philosopher David Lewis argued that people estimate the subjective plausibility that a counterfactual event might have occurred by comparing an imagined possible world in which the counterfactual statement is true against the current, actual world in which the counterfactual statement is false. Accordingly, counterfactuals considered to be true in possible worlds comparatively more similar to ours are judged as more plausible than counterfactuals deemed true in possible worlds comparatively less similar. Although Lewis (...) did not originally develop his notion of comparative similarity to be investigated as a psychological construct, this study builds upon his idea to empirically investigate comparative similarity as a possible psychological strategy for evaluating the perceived plausibility of counterfactual events. More specifically, we evaluate judgments of comparative similarity between episodic memories and episodic counterfactual events as a factor influencing people's judgments of plausibility in counterfactual simulations, and we also compare it against other factors thought to influence judgments of counterfactual plausibility, such as ease of simulation and prior simulation. Our results suggest that the greater the perceived similarity between the original memory and the episodic counterfactual event, the greater the perceived plausibility that the counterfactual event might have occurred. While similarity between actual and counterfactual events, ease of imagining, and prior simulation of the counterfactual event were all significantly related to counterfactual plausibility, comparative similarity best captured the variance in ratings of counterfactual plausibility. Implications for existing theories on the determinants of counterfactual plausibility are discussed. (shrink)

What could ground normative restrictions concerning cultural appropriation which are not grounded by independent considerations such as property rights or harm? We propose that such restrictions can be grounded by considerations of intimacy. Consider the familiar phenomenon of interpersonal intimacy. Certain aspects of personal life and interpersonal relationships are afforded various protections in virtue of being intimate. We argue that an analogous phenomenon exists at the level of large groups. In many cases, members of a group engage in shared practices (...) that contribute to a sense of common identity, such as wearing certain hair or clothing styles or performing a certain style of music. Participation in such practices can generate relations of group intimacy, which can ground certain prerogatives in much the same way that interpersonal intimacy can. One such prerogative is making what we call an appropriation claim. An appropriation claim is a request from a group member that non-members refrain from appropriating a given element of the group’s culture. Ignoring appropriation claims can constitute a breach of intimacy. But, we argue, just as for the prerogatives of interpersonal intimacy, in many cases there is no prior fact of the matter about whether the appropriation of a given cultural practice constitutes a breach of intimacy. It depends on what the group decides together. (shrink)

What methodology should philosophers follow? Should they rely on methods that can be conducted from the armchair? Or should they leave the armchair and turn to the methods of the natural sciences, such as experiments in the laboratory? Or is this opposition itself a false one? Arguments about philosophical methodology are raging in the wake of a number of often conflicting currents, such as the growth of experimental philosophy, the resurgence of interest in metaphysical questions, and the use of formal (...) methods. This outstanding collection of specially-commissioned chapters by leading international philosophers discusses these questions and many more. It provides a comprehensive survey of philosophical methodology in the most important philosophical subjects: metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, philosophy of science, ethics, and aesthetics. A key feature of the collection is that philosophers discuss and evaluate contrasting approaches in each subject, offering a superb overview of the variety of methodological approaches - both naturalistic and non-naturalistic - in each of these areas. They examine important topics at the heart of methodological argument, including the role of intuitions and conceptual analysis, thought experiments, introspection, and the place that results from the natural sciences should have in philosophical theorizing. The collection begins with a fascinating exchange about philosophical naturalism between Timothy Williamson and Alexander Rosenberg, and also includes contributions from the following philosophers: Lynne Rudder Baker, Matt Bedke, Greg Currie, Michael Devitt, Matthew C. Haug, Jenann Ismael, Hilary Kornblith, Neil Levy, E.J. Lowe, Kirk Ludwig, Marie McGinn, David Papineau, Matthew Ratcliffe, Georges Rey, Jeffrey W. Roland, Barry C. Smith, Amie L. Thomasson, Valerie Tiberius, Jessica Wilson, and David W. Smith. (shrink)

Recently Robert Forman has attempted to muster support for the largely abandoned position that mystical experiences cross-culturally include an unmediated, non-relative core. To reopen the debate he has solicited essays from likeminded scholars for his book, The Problem of Pure Consciousness. Predictably the focus of the volume rests on the refutation of the position most notably expounded by Steven Katz in his influential article of 1978, ‘Language, Epistemology and Mysticism’.

The law and policy applicable to the not-for-profit sector is of growing importance around the world. In this book, legal experts address fundamental questions about not-for-profit law from a range of theoretical and comparative perspectives. The essays provide scholarly analysis of not-for-profit law, organised around four themes: Politics, in the broader sense of living as a community, and the narrower sense of political power; Charity, how it is defined and changes in its meaning over time; Taxation, including the rationale for (...) government support of the sector through the tax system; Regulation, which is of increasing significance as governments establish increasingly complex forms of regulation of not-for-profit activity. The fundamental aim of the book is to deepen our understanding of not-for-profit law and of the rationales and modes of government support for the not-for-profit sector. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe recognition of emotional facial expressions is often subject to contextual influence, particularly when the face and the context convey similar emotions. We investigated whether spontaneous, incidental affective theory of mind inferences made while reading vignettes describing social situations would produce context effects on the identification of same-valenced emotions as well as differently-valenced emotions conveyed by subsequently presented faces. Crucially, we found an effect of context on reaction times in both experiments while, in line with previous work, we found evidence (...) for a context effect on accuracy only in Experiment 1. This demonstrates that affective theory of mind inferences made at the pragmatic level of a text can automatically, contextually influence the perceptual processing of emotional facial expressions in a separate task even when those emotions are of a distinctive valence. Thus, our novel findings suggest that language acts as a contex... (shrink)

Postcolonial science studies entails ostensibly contradictory critical and empirical commitments. Science studies scholars influenced by Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers embrace forms of realist, radical empiricism, while postcolonial studies scholars influenced by Jacques Derrida trace the limits of the knowable. This essay takes their common use of the term cosmopolitics as an unexpected point of departure for reconciling Derrida’s program with Stengers’s and Latour’s. I read Derrida’s critique of hospitality and Stengers’s and Latour’s ontological politics as necessary complements for conceiving (...) a care-oriented subalternist cosmopolitics, a process of composing common worlds that remains attentive to the limits of representation. (shrink)

Current theoretical account of judgment has a difficult time saying anything positive about the experience of judging and, when they do offer positive accounts, they seem to overlook much that we know about the capacity already in our daily lives. Following the work of Martin Heidegger and Hubert Dreyfus, this article provides a phenomenological consideration of the structure of judging that considers judgment not as an intellectual act, but as a comportment. The article proceeds in two parts. The first offers (...) a brief consideration of the assumptions of intellectualist accounts and shows why, ultimately, they may be unable to bring judging into focus. The second section offers a phenomenological account of judging. The argument of section two is that deliberate judgment is a continuation of the structure of judgment understood as comportment and, in turn, that intellectualist accounts come onto the scene too late. (shrink)

_Kant and Applied Ethics_ makes an important contribution to Kant scholarship, illuminating the vital moral parameters of key ethical debates. Offers a critical analysis of Kant’s ethics, interrogating the theoretical bases of his theory and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses Examines the controversies surrounding the most important ethical discussions taking place today, including abortion, the death penalty, and same-sex marriage Joins innovative thinkers in contemporary Kantian scholarship, including Christine Korsgaard, Allen Wood, and Barbara Herman, in taking Kant’s philosophy in new (...) and interesting directions Clarifies Kant’s legacy for applied ethics, helping us to understand how these debates have been structured historically and providing us with the philosophical tools to address them. (shrink)

We present experimental evidence that people's modes of social interaction influence their construal of truth. Participants who engaged in cooperative interactions were less inclined to agree that there was an objective truth about that topic than were those who engaged in a competitive interaction. Follow-up experiments ruled out alternative explanations and indicated that the changes in objectivity are explained by argumentative mindsets: When people are in cooperative arguments, they see the truth as more subjective. These findings can help inform research (...) on moral objectivism and, more broadly, on the distinctive cognitive consequences of different types of social interaction. (shrink)

When examined critically, Kant's views on sex and marriage give us the tools to defend same-sex marriage on moral grounds. The sexual objectification of one's partner can only be overcome when two people take responsibility for one another's overall well-being, and this commitment is enforced through legal coercion. Kant's views on the unnaturalness of homosexuality do not stand up to scrutiny, and he cannot (as he often tries to) restrict the purpose of sex to procreation. Kant himself rules out marriage (...) only when the partners cannot give themselves to one another equally – that is, if there is inequality of exchange. Because same-sex marriage would be between equals and would allow homosexuals to express their desire in a morally appropriate way, it ought to be legalized. (shrink)

Most ethics guidelines for distributing scarce medical resources during the coronavirus pandemic seek to save the most lives and the most life‐years. A patient’s prognosis is determined using a SOFA or MSOFA score to measure likelihood of survival to discharge, as well as a consideration of relevant comorbidities and their effects on likelihood of survival up to one or five years. Although some guidelines use age as a tiebreaker when two patients’ prognoses are identical, others refuse to consider age for (...) fear of discriminating against the elderly. In this paper, I argue that age is directly relevant for maximizing health benefits, so current ethics guidelines are wrongly excluding or deemphasizing life‐stage in their triage algorithms. Research on COVID‐19 has shown that age is a risk factor in adverse outcomes, independent of comorbidities. And limiting a consideration of life‐years to only one or five years past discharge does not maximize health benefits. Therefore, based on their own stated values, triage algorithms for coronavirus patients ought to include life‐stage as a primary consideration, along with the SOFA score and comorbidities, rather than excluding it or using it merely as a tiebreaker. This is not discriminatory because patients ought to have equal opportunity to experience life‐stages. The equitable enforcement of that right justifies unequal treatment based on age in cases when there is a scarcity of life‐saving resources. A consideration of life‐stage would thus allow healthcare workers to responsibly steward public resources in order to maximize lives and life‐years saved. (shrink)

Several philosophers (e.g., Ehring (Nous (Detroit, Mich.) 30:461–480, 1996 ); Funkhouser (Nous (Detroit, Mich.) 40:548–569, 2006 ); Walter (Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37:217–244, 2007 ) have argued that there are metaphysical differences between the determinable-determinate relation and the realization relation between mental and physical properties. Others have challenged this claim (e.g., Wilson (Philosophical Studies, 2009 ). In this paper, I argue that there are indeed such differences and propose a “mechanistic” account of realization that elucidates why these differences hold. This (...) account of realization incorporates two distinct roles that mechanisms play in the realization of mental (and other special science) properties which are implicit, but undeveloped, in the literature—what I call “constitutive” and “integrative” mechanisms. I then use these two notions of mechanism to clarify some debates about the relations between realization, multiple realizability, and irreducibility. (shrink)

Given that natural selection is so powerful at optimizing complex adaptations, why does it seem unable to eliminate genes (susceptibility alleles) that predispose to common, harmful, heritable mental disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder? We assess three leading explanations for this apparent paradox from evolutionary genetic theory: (1) ancestral neutrality (susceptibility alleles were not harmful among ancestors), (2) balancing selection (susceptibility alleles sometimes increased fitness), and (3) polygenic mutation-selection balance (mental disorders reflect the inevitable mutational load on the thousands (...) of genes underlying human behavior). The first two explanations are commonly assumed in psychiatric genetics and Darwinian psychiatry, while mutation-selection has often been discounted. All three models can explain persistent genetic variance in some traits under some conditions, but the first two have serious problems in explaining human mental disorders. Ancestral neutrality fails to explain low mental disorder frequencies and requires implausibly small selection coefficients against mental disorders given the data on the reproductive costs and impairment of mental disorders. Balancing selection (including spatio-temporal variation in selection, heterozygote advantage, antagonistic pleiotropy, and frequency-dependent selection) tends to favor environmentally contingent adaptations (which would show no heritability) or high-frequency alleles (which psychiatric genetics would have already found). Only polygenic mutation-selection balance seems consistent with the data on mental disorder prevalence rates, fitness costs, the likely rarity of susceptibility alleles, and the increased risks of mental disorders with brain trauma, inbreeding, and paternal age. This evolutionary genetic framework for mental disorders has wide-ranging implications for psychology, psychiatry, behavior genetics, molecular genetics, and evolutionary approaches to studying human behavior. (Published Online November 9 2006) Key Words: adaptation; behavior genetics; Darwinian psychiatry; evolution; evolutionary genetics; evolutionary psychology; mental disorders; mutation-selection balance; psychiatric genetics; quantitative trait loci (QTL). (shrink)

Recent research in ethics education shows a potentially problematic variation in content, curricular materials, and instruction. While ethics instruction is now widespread, studies have identified significant variation in both the goals and methods of ethics education, leaving researchers to conclude that many approaches may be inappropriately paired with goals that are unachievable. This paper speaks to these concerns by demonstrating the importance of aligning classroom-based assessments to clear ethical learning objectives in order to help students and instructors track their progress (...) toward meeting those objectives. Two studies at two different universities demonstrate the usefulness of classroom-based, formative assessments for improving the quality of students’ case responses in computational modeling and research ethics. (shrink)